“Freedom of expression, (what used to be called free speech), must include the license to offend.”

That was the resolution that was examined in a televised debate in 2006. Among the panelists arguing for the affirmative was the late literary critic and provocateur Christopher Hitchens. He was something of a leftist and a thorough-going atheist.

I am not any of those things. Yet we both shared, and I continue to hold, an abiding belief in and an advocacy for free speech.

In today’s political and social climate, it is hard to imagine that a debate of this sort would even be allowed on some college campuses, since it is a near certainty that someone, somewhere, hearing or reading about it would in fact be offended by the interchange of arguments — which makes my point.

If the possibility of being offended is sufficient to veto free expression, then just about any debate about anything can be stopped before it gets started. When the possibility of debate on crucial issues is removed, when one side is silenced, then even worse things can happen.

The truth of the premises, the relevance of the premises to the conclusion, the evidence expressed in the premises taken as a whole to support a conclusion; in short, the entire carefully crafted application of fact and logic to make one’s point, can be halted because someone claims offense.

Proclaiming to be offended can only be verified by someone saying so. Is the allegedly offended person or people lying about being offended or not? Is there an ulterior motive to stopping discussion, a motive that is being hidden from the public?

Anyway, why does being offended trump freedom of expression?

To establish offense, we have to get into the heads of those claiming offense. On the other hand, freely expressed comments and arguments are open to public evaluation in ways that claiming offense is not.

There has been a strange reversal of order in the free speech movement in the last half century or so.

Today, freedom of speech is mostly being suppressed by those allegedly offended by conservative speakers on university campuses and the freedom of expression of wannabe Nazis is being suppressed on the public square. Sixty years ago, during what is now called the McCarthy Era, it was members of the political left, mostly communists, whose speech was being suppressed by conservatives.

They were wrong to suppress free speech the, and those who continue to suppress free speech now are equally wrong.

I’m old enough to remember when a bunch of self-described Nazis wanted to march in Skokie, home at the time to many Holocaust survivors. It was the American Civil Liberties Union — not known for conservative proclivities — that argued for their right to do so.

When did freedom of speech somehow become a conservative trademark, to be suppressed by campus leftists claiming offense?

Freedom of expression has limits. You may not publish secret government plans or documents without risking arrest and conviction for a violation of law. The freedom Hitchens and I are describing is about personally held opinions and beliefs.

In his remarks during the 2006 debate, Hitchens asked, “Whom will we appoint to decide where the limits [of free expression] should be?” After hearing their arguments, Hitchens announced that he would not want any one of the debate panelists, opposing the resolution, to have that power.

And just to make sure everyone understands my point, I absolutely loathe white supremacists, Nazis and Klansmen.